Strychnos spinosa Fruits

₹1000.00

Strychnos spinosa, the Natal orange, is a tree indigenous to tropical and subtropical Africa. It produces sweet-sour, yellow fruits, containing numerous hard brown seeds. Greenish-white flowers grow in dense heads at the ends of branches (Sep-Feb/Spring - summer). The fruits tend to appear only after good rains. It is related to the deadly Strychnos nux-vomica, which contains strychnine. The smooth, hard fruit are large and green, ripen to yellow colour. Inside the fruit are tightly packed seeds, which may be toxic, surrounded by a fleshy, brown, edible covering.

The plant, taken alone or in conjunction with extracts of other plants, is used by the Tiv people of Nigeria for snakebites, venereal disease, increasing the flow of breastmilk in lactating mothers, and enhancing physical strength.

Clade: Asterids
Order: Gentianales
Family: Loganiaceae
Genus: Strychnos
Species: S. spinosa